“Right. Scrabble at the COEX.” This had been our plan, to take Justin’s Scrabble board and play a game in the food court of the COEX shopping mall. He and Rob Cruise had done this once before, with humorous results — it had caused a growing and enthusiastic crowd of Korean passersby to stop and watch them. Koreans are generally fascinated by English, even if they don’t speak it; most know that access to English means access to power. Scrabble is especially captivating, since there can be no equivalent of it with their own alphabet. My students are always begging to play the game in class, but Ms. Kim frowns upon it.
Justin gets up and digs the Scrabble board out from under a pile of clothes. It’s an early version of the game — the maroon box is sagging and held together with an elastic band. “We’ll probably only have time for one game,” he says. “I have my private at four o’clock.”
“Fair enough,” I reply. By private, he means a private tutoring session, not exactly the most legal of activities in this country. In theory, you can be deported if you’re caught teaching English outside of the regular channels. But of course we all do it — the extra money is too good to pass up.
He stuffs the board and a dictionary into his backpack and then we head out the door. The COEX is a twenty-minute walk from our apartment, and by the time we get there, our hangovers have turned to hunger. We order a couple of bibimbap in the food court. As we set up the Scrabble board, I notice a few curious stares from other patrons, but that’s all.
While we eat and play, Justin tells me more about the private he’ll be teaching later in the afternoon. She’s a twelve-year-old named (of course!) “Jenny,” a former student at ABC English Planet whose parents pulled her out after they realized how preposterous the curriculum was. But Jenny loved Justin’s demeanour and teaching style, and so her mother approached him discreetly to ask if he could teach her privately on weekends at their home near Dogok Station. The family is loaded — Justin makes 160,000 won for four hours of work. Jenny’s dad is an executive with a big Korean company, putting in ninety hours a week, and Justin hardly ever sees him during the tutoring sessions. (“Hell, Jenny’s mom hardly ever sees him.”) Still, Justin has found kinship with both parents — they’re only in their mid-thirties, just a couple years older than he is.
“It’s like they’ve adopted me,” he says, putting DIAL on the board. “They feed me; they buy me gifts; they help me with my Korean. And of the dozen sessions I’ve done, only about five have taken place in their apartment. The rest of time, Jenny’s Mom —”
“What’s her name?”
“Sunkyoung — she doesn’t have an English name. The rest of the time Sunkyoung says ‘Let’s take Jenny to a museum today’ or ‘let’s take Jenny to an English movie.’ She’s so adamant that we get out and do things together. The three of us.”
“And you go?” I say, adding ET to TOIL for a triple word score.
“Of course I go,” he replies. “It doesn’t feel like work at all. It feels,” and he lowers his eyes, ostensibly to add my score, “it feels like being part of a family.”
As our game progresses a few passing Koreans throw us a glance. One nosy woman stops to inspect our board and points at the word RASCAL. “What means?” she asks. “A very bad man,” Justin deadpans. She covers her mouth as she titters and walks off. A few minutes later, an older gentleman approaches our table with an awkward smile. Does he attempt his own comment about the Scrabble board? No. Instead he points at my face, then points at his own and rubs his chin jealously.
“I like-uh your beard-uh,” he blurts out, but then scurries off, embarrassed.
I turn to Justin. “He liked my beard.”
He nods. “It’s an enviable beard. Korean men can’t grow one like that. They just get the Fu Man Chu thing going on.”
“I like your beard, too,” I hear someone say over my left shoulder. I turn in the swivel chair and am surprised to see the girl I met at Jokers Red a few weeks ago. Jin. The girl in the long coat and cashmere. Jin. Rob Cruise’s clandestine conquest. She stands holding a tray of food and wearing a black business suit, smart and well-tailored. It takes me a second to believe it’s her. Justin clears his throat.
Before I can even shove out a hello, she marches over to our table. “Why are you playing this silly game in a food court?”
Justin and I look at each other as if we’ve forgotten. “I guess it’s our way of offering free English lessons,” he jokes. “Do you want one?”
“My English is fine, thank you very much.” She seats herself next to me.
“Funny we’ve run into you here,” I say.
“I work in COEX Tower. I’m on my lunch break, finally.”
“You work Saturdays?”
“Of course. Most Koreans do. You ESL teachers have it easy — most of you get Saturdays off.” She hasn’t taken her eyes off the board. “So can you explain how this game works?”
We talk her through it as we play, elucidating on what the coloured areas mean and how to place the high-point letters on them strategically. She nods with growing comprehension and restrained delight. I’m very aware of her proximity to me, the way she leans across my arm to cast her curiosity over the board. I want to ensure that I win this game in front of her. I clinch the deal when I place my last letter, an X, on a triple-letter score with it buttressed by an A and an E for a total of fifty points.
Jin lets out a little laugh and claps. “Wow, all that with one letter?” She turns to me. “You’re good at scoring points with very little.”
Justin chuckles at this, perhaps thinking of our night at Jokers Red. “Well, that’s the game,” he says, getting up. “I have to go if I’m going to make my private on time. Do you mind taking the board back with you?”
“Sure,” I say. I almost expect Jin to leave, too, but instead she scoots over with her tray to take Justin’s seat after he’s gone. I notice she’s eating a hamburger and fries. When I start gathering up the slates, she stops me. “Hey, aren’t we going to play?”
“All right.”
I set up another game and offer her the bag to draw her seven letters; I feel her hand muscling around in my palm to dig them out. She places them gingerly on her slate and then stares at them with great concentration, as if they might contain a plot. We sit for a long while in focused silence. For the first few rounds, Jin can only play three-letter words — DOG and WIG and TOE — but does so with great deliberation. With each hefty strategizing thought, her bottom lip sticks out, hangs there between the two streaks of her black hair framing her face. She munches on her lunch and doesn’t look up from the board.
“So what do you do in COEX Tower?” I ask.
“I work for a clothing exporter. I do sales and marketing. In fact, I’m supposed to be in Beijing on business, but all this SARS nonsense made my employer keep me home.” She proudly puts her first four-letter word on the board, BENT, doing so with both hands, the letters pinched in her fingers. She goes on to explain how her fluency in four languages results in regular trips abroad — Shanghai and Paris and London. I learn a few other things as she rambles: Though twenty-seven and professionally successful, she still lives at home with her parents — the norm for young unmarried Korean women.
I try not to cream her too badly, but when the game ends I have twice her score. She checks the time on her cellphone. “Ugh. I should get back to my office,” she moans.
“Okay.”
“It was nice seeing you again, Michael.”
“Thanks.”
She hesitates, looks at me as if I’ve forgotten something. Forgotten my manners somehow, or to ask another question. Whatever it is, I don’t say or do it. She gets up curtly and leaves. I begin putting the tiles in